As was previously shown, James fell though a floor. The needed rope acquisition was the 'leaving him alone' you speak of. Everyone who looked into that hole but Milo got Basilisk'd rather quickly after. The only reason Katie didn't die too was Milo catching her before she fell. A beatdown may be coming, but who's preferably injured to me is no-one. Sadly, she hit Katie already. Woman needs to accept that her son died doing the same highly-dangerous stuff Her target is. Also, pretty sure when

(click to show/hide)

James shot that Mercy

, Katie called down for the reason. Chances are, considering the situation, only people who saw those deadly eyes saw much of anything without being in that hole too. Dangerously emotional people help zombies more than people, ironically.

Logged

Common sense isn't very common.10 for the cause.Can mate with her, but she's creepy. Can't mate with her, but she's hot. The mermaid problem. Accept no substitutes.

Wait now, why would people say Katie did not screw up by leaving James alone???She did it twice: First in the streets where he got surrounded by crawlers (and it's rather likely that being alone in the middle of zombies on his first mission ever would contribute to him being so nervous later on) even if that time didn't get him killed, it did endanger him in an absurdly useless way.Second when guarding the hole. You're supposed to talk to the wounded, to remind them they haven't been left behind yet, and to make sure they're still conscious. It's impossible something that basic would have not been taught to the zombie hunters.

There's also a team fail, because he was obviously not accepted into the team and in such a small group just one being cast out puts the others in danger as well. In the "present" part of the story, Jenny has become the team's leader despite not recognising Charlie as an ally, and they're still taking bets on whether Dan will die on his first mission or not instead of trying not to get buddies killed. They don't have a team, there's a gang of friends, Jenny, Sam, Katie and Mau (and Milo but only in the past), and others around that they won't let into their circle.I hate myself for that, but I'm starting to agree with Jasper's cheap shot about how Jenny couldn't keep Milo from getting killed, everytime we see the team in action we see... something that isn't a team. Something disorganised, undisciplined and weak. Jenny (author) has got her main characters acting kind of like movie badasses, but that leading to logical consequences (casualties, conflicts, penalties, etc), yet when some people hate some part, they hate the outcome while defending the long chain of events that caused them. In real life, you can't separate cause and effect like that, and Jenny tried to reflect that in her comic.

But I guess dangerously emotional people aren't comfortable with that notion

I get a lot of negative criticism on TZH (most of it being 'omg this is a Mary sue weeaboo(sp?) fap fest.', 'where are the zombies!!1??', 'You are ripping off L4D' and 'You're a femminazi!!') which is usually ignored and forgotten until it's up in my face again, I also get criticism on how slowly paced the comic is. Which, to me, rings true. Where it is fine (at least to me) in book format, as a webcomic? The slow updates don't fair so well compared to the ones that update on a more frequent basis. So I always try to cut as much unnecessary stuff as humanly possible to make the story go faster, and make every update count.

While I am not about to go back and change anything, I am just reflecting at how something can be perceived if you take out pieces of dialogue to condense into fewer comics to move the story faster. Since the part with James and the basilisk I have always been extra careful when I take out parts of the story to save time. It has been quite the learning experience.

If you look at the bottom of every news-post you can see the full script for each page, for what I had intended for the story:

http://www.thezombiehunters.com/index.php?strip_id=152James: [James see's his gun a little distance a way] Yeah, I got it. But I don't see anything its all dark.Milo: Use your ears then. Stay calm, here. I am going to be right back, just stay calm. [turns to Katie] Keep away from the edge, don't want you falling down in there with him. [he hits his com unit. As he walks off Katie, sits by the hole]

Here, Katie was following an order, if the floor is weak enough for a person to fall through the area around it might be weak in other places around it as well (which is why they kept to the side). Milo didn't want to have to fish both of them out. Milo continues to talk to James while Milo is doing his thing. But in my haste to cut down the blah blah, that part got cut. My thought was "Oh the audience would know that you really shouldn't crawl to the edge of a collapsed floor" But not EVERYONE has been inside abandoned buildings or knows about urban decay. Which was an error on my part honestly. So coupled with leaving James with a pile of non threatening crawlers, makes Katie look like a crazy uncaring psychopath. Even more-so than Sam.

Which works, surprisingly. But not what I was going for haha.

I never put anything on the website that you HAVE to look at in order for the comic to make sense, I think that's stupid and insulting. Everything you need to know to enjoy the story is in the comic, if you wish to see whats in the extras, those are exactly what they are, extras.

It annoys me with people who complain about the "pace" of full-page webcomics when it at the very least updates weekly.Seems like they missed the memo that webcomics such as Drowtales has TEAMS working shifts at each CHAPTER; being basically one chapter ahead all the time.And the L4D thing? The whole L4D thing is what lead me to this webcomic in the first place.I was at the L4D wiki and was trying to find info on the new Special infected when it was also written that some people have suspected that the producers of the L4D franchise had been copying "The webcomic: The Zombie hunters".I was sold at "comic" and "zombie"

"'omg this is a Mary sue weeaboo(sp?) fap fest.', 'where are the zombies!!1??', 'You are ripping off L4D' and 'You're a femminazi!!"

Wow people who say stuff like this are morons (to put it politely).-I really cant see anything mary sue about TZH at all. If you want mary sue go read about "ultramarines". -I counted over 100 comic strips where there are zombies and zombie killing involved. Thats about a third of the comic so far and we all know the real story is with the survivors and not the zombies. So that is a plethora of zombies.-That also always happens when there is a media giant like L4D. People assume it was their idea just because they heard it from them first. Its like saying that George Romero invented zombies just because his zombie movies were very popular. The same thing happened with that AMC tv show "the walking dead". Everyone was like "the hospital scene was already in 28 days later, he copied it." Even though he wrote it in a comic long before 28days came out.-And we all know you not a femminazi.

Keep up the great work Jenny. My friends and I are loving the story progression and we dont find it "too slow" or anything like that. The majority of webcomics I read are weekly. There will always be critics but at the same time you will always have your fans. So dont listen to the critics unless they have something objective to say. Personally I love the story and the realism involved. Its pretty obvious the lengths that you have gone to to ensure that every detail is accurate.

Also I think people are being pretty harsh with Katie both in comic and in the real world. She is only about 15 or 16. It wasnt her fault that James died. Sure she left him but she knew he was in no real danger and nothing came from it anyway. In the end it was his own clumsiness that killed him. James actually really annoyed me. He had a gun so why wasnt he using it when he was surrounded by crawlers instead of whimpering like a child? James's mother is a coward as well so I guess it runs in the family. She is attacking the one person who she knows wont fight back. Also she already hit Milo so why isnt out of her system?

Eheh, this could be a silly insert (like what happens a lot in Girl Genius) a few pages detailing zombies going about their zombie business. A building collapses, the noise attracts the zombies around and they climb on each others trying to get there first and bite the ones that "get in the way" and stuff... we could see more of how they behave. By example will a berserker attack a crawler when it finds no humans?It could actually be an interrestinc concept, and if Jenny had some silly ideas involving zombies that would have broken the mood during the real storyline she can dump them there!